In order to fill a case by making up layers of bottles lying on their sides, or in order to empty such a case layer-by-layer, a known manually-controlled bottle-grasping tool can be used to seize the sides of a row of bottles that are lying down or standing up for the purposes of transporting them and of tilting them. This tool is generally suspended from a swivel hoist by means of a cord, and is tiltably mounted at the free end of the cord. The height of the tool is permanently under operator control, with the cord being played out from or taken up into the hoist under control of the operator. A tool-balancing device is provided at the other end of the cord, e.g. inside the body of the hoist.
One of the problems that needs to be solved with this type of tool is to be able to adapt tool-balancing to whether or not the tool is loaded, taking account of the facts that the load to be balanced changes quickly while the bottles are being picked up or put down, and in addition, in most cases, that the load tilts at this very moment.
These rapid changes in the balance state of the tool and the movements that result therefrom firstly impart hard-to-bear shocks to the operator's arms, and secondly require the operator to apply large forces to the tool very quickly in order to control tool behavior as well as possible during these transient periods.
The invention proposes integrating means in a bottle handling device that considerably improve operator comfort, operating safety, and conditions of utilization.